Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Is Newburyport Worth Preserving? My Castle or an Ounce of Prevention

A few random thoughts from yours truly on the LHD issue...

My Castle
An old cliche which has been bandied about quite a bit of late in relation to the Local Historic District issue is "a man's home is his castle." In fact, I got an email today from a constituent who, although not living in the proposed District, referenced this very phrase to explain her opposition to the LHD.

Our home is our "castle" and there should not be dictates as to how we
manage it. There are enough governmental intrusions in our lives and we
do not need anymore.

My own take is that if my house was my castle I'd be able to mow my lawn at 5AM, blast my electric guitar amplifier from my porch anytime I pleased, host a large permanent billboard on the side to extol my opinions to the world, and build a shed the size of the Astrodome in my back yard.

Another thought: if my home is my castle and a developer buys my castle, is it then the developer's castle?

Another thought: if I have my castle and my neighbor trashes his castle next door, is my enjoyment of my castle diminished in any way?

An Ounce of Prevention
An old cliche which I haven't heard as much lately but I think is equally or perhaps more relevant is "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Newburyport is not special because of its unique architecture; Newburyport is special because its ordinary architecture is still with us and makes us unique. In most communities, the downtowns got bulldozed, old homes got trashed because someone thought that was easier, and we've lost a lot of our history. I think it's a reasonable step to put minimal protections in place---the proposed LHD guidelines are the weakest and least intrusive of any of the over 200 Local Historic Districts in Massachusetts.

I want the grand-kids of our kids to be able to see in at least a few places what America was like 'back in the day'- a liveable and yes beautiful city.. Newburyport may or may not be one of those places depending on what the Council chooses to do in the next few weeks.

Below is the list of High Street properties in the Newburyport National Register Historic District, which is a different 'thing' than a Local Historic District. For a more coherent explanation than I can give as to the difference, go here at http://www.sec.state.ma.us/mhc/mhcpdf/difference.pdf

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Ed,

Enjoyed your last Blog on Castles. The English common law evolved in a largely rural environment, in which one person's "Castle" was relatively remote from the "Castles" of neighbors. Nonetheless, as far back as the 13th century A.D. it was recognized that the owner of an "estate" in land had obligations not to harm the "estate" of others. With urbanization, and suburbanization in the United States, local zoning plus state and national building codes evolved to balance rights and duties. Local historic districts create a distinct but related process, if approved in specific communities: local community volunteers work with property owners, implementing community-approved guidelines to balance liberties to use one's own property as one wishes with community benefits from shared architectural and historical heritages.

Two classic commentaries indicate a longstanding commitment that property "rights" cannot be considered in isolation from concurrent property "duties" to minimize harm to the property of neighbors:

Henry of Bracton, in 13th century England: "No one may do in his own estate any thing whereby damage or nuisance may happen to his neighbor."

William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1753): "... If one does any other act, in itself lawful, which yet being done in that place necessarily tends to the damage of another's property, it is a nuisance: for it is incumbent on him to find some other place to do that act, where it will be less offensive..."